I think this doctor replied very realistically. Granted, the trans crowds aren't the biggest fans of reality, but it's still better to be totally honest with things like this. Sugarcoating everything only creates false hope.

We currently have kids being born with very open boundaries in terms of how they interpret gender, and our world is not catching up with this ideology, and incorporating it into mainstream society: this is the real problem. Kids who greatly desire to completely transition to the other sex, want to do this because you can only express your sex through conventional "male" and "female" archetypes, when in reality there is no concrete archetype for gender expression. In short, these young kids wanting to be the other sex and act in that conventional manner, is an extension or acceptance of our society's ill interpretation of gender. Ultimately these kids just want to fit in, and you have limited ways to fit in within our culture. I think youth needs a healthy support network where they can create their own identities away from what the world expects out of their identity. On average, you don't need a doctor and surgical procedures to be happy in in your own skin. You were born with the sex you were born with, which is a done deal, and if you choose to express yourself through the conventions of the opposite sex, that's fine. But living your life you denounce the genitalia you were born with isn't healthy, and taking hormones to bypass this in my opinion is malignant.

Not4u saidSo what I took away from the letter was that it really doesn't get better. Nice message for a suicidal transgendered teen.

What I took away from the letter is that we - as a society - have to help them make it better, just like our hetero counterparts have done for us.

Solid and valid point. Must add that it's not easy to accept that which we don't understand.

So we have to buy into their delusion or else we aren't accepting? I hate to bring it up but take the whole bathroom brouhaha that's taking place now. "Transgendered" people want access to the restroom that matches their delusion whether they present themselves as the sex that belies what's between their legs or not. Basically a biological man can walk into a woman's restroom dressed as a man - no dress, no make up, no wig, no heels - dick, balls and all and do so because he "feels" he's really a woman. Because that's what they want and the Obama Administration is trying to foist on everyone else. That's fucking insane. The majority of people have to be made to feel uncomfortable and potentially endangered because of a minute segment of society - just so they feel all warm, cozy, and accepted in their delusion? Bullshit.

I'm not there yet but sometimes I feel I don't want the T with the LGBs either.

Edit: delusion may not be the best word choice but it's the one that came to me when responding.

Yes, "delusion" is the wrong word, because you framed the problem incorrectly in the first place. The natural scheme of things generally, but not exclusively, is designed for heterosexual reproduction of the species of animals and plants, which involves "male" and "female" functioning parts. A reproduction of an organism is a complex "manufacturing" process, and as any factory operator could tell you, manufactured products do not always turn out as the process is designed to do.

Simply apply this paradigm to an uterus, and it is quite easy to see how certain models will be turned out with various deviations from the general plan due to processes presently both known and unknown. In humans, not every model is turned out as a totally heterosexual male or female. Some (approximately 10% according to accepted wisdom) will be homosexual, somewhat the world over. It is not much of a leap in reasoning to understand that some fewer number will be turned out with the physical plumbing of one gender but with the mental wiring in the brain of the other gender.

Do I emotionally understand this? No, I cannot conceive emotionally of what this must be like to feel this way, but I have absolutely no problem understanding this intellectually. At this point in my life, I actually know several people who have transitioned (even before Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn). Knowing them and their families and their circumstances for decades earlier, I have absolutely no doubt that this transgender situation is biologically based. Personally dealing with it and dealing with it as a society is only complicated and made more difficult by the idiocies of the religious entities and of legislatures such as in North Carolina and Oklahoma.

Totally get what you're saying Sulla but that's not what I was getting at. To cut to the chase: make an attempt to at least look like a woman before trying to use the women's restroom. Just like Shania Twain, if you feel like a woman make an attempt to look the part. It really isn't all that hard. I mean if Eleanor Roosevelt, Julia Child and Janette Reno had no problems using the women's room any trannie making a half hearted effort shouldn't have a problem either.

"We" (society at-large) do not have to accommodate their every need or desire to prove "we're" accepting, even if it's biologically based. Some people are kleptomaniacs because of brain chemistry or injuries. We still don't condone wholesale stealing on their part.

‘Christian’ Evangelist Urges Fathers To Shoot Any Trans People Who Show Up In Bathrooms

Perhaps you’ve heard of James Dobson. He’s the founder and president of a right-wing group known as Focus on the Family, and he’s also a massive heap of human excrement who has attacked President Obama in his sermons, alleging the President is a “tyrant [who] assault[s] centuries of modesty and moral beliefs.”

In a new article Dobson wrote for the extremist website World Net Daily, this so-called Christian is calling on those who have daughters to take matters into their own hands and shoot any transgendered person they see in a public restroom.

Something seems off about this story. If this VIP ward was always an option, why ddn't they just put him/her there from the start? Pakistan views transsexuals as a third sex (hijra). Pakistan is also arguably more trans-friendly than the US. Trans people in Pakistan have more rights than gay men. There's also some type of spiritual aspect to Pakistan's trans-appreciation. The melodramatic music (literally violins playing) also makes this seem like yet another LGBT media attempt to manipulate a story for sympathy instead of reporting what actually happened.